Selling your wine

As one of the UK’s leading managers of privately held fine wine reserves, we’ve a dedicated team who’d be delighted to advise you on the sale of specific bottles, cases or in some instances, your entire cellar.

Most of our clients choose to sell their wine through our dedicated team: it’s a simple, efficient process where we aim to achieve the best price as quickly as possible.

We handle all of the aspects of the sale, from advising on price to marketing the wine, taking payment, transferring it to the new owners and ensuring the net proceeds are transferred securely and swiftly to your named account. With decades of experience and contacts in the trade, our team is fully attuned to market conditions, and always on hand to help achieve the best outcomes for the wines you wish to sell.

If you would like to sell your wine, you can get started online on your reserves page, or speak with one of our team by phone on 01473 313 333 or by email [email protected].

If you choose to list the wines using the accounts section online, your wines will be listed immediately on our website once you’ve set the price and agreed to the terms and conditions. You’ll receive an email confirmation with the agreement of sale.

If you choose to list the wines by speaking with one of our team, we aim to complete the paperwork and set the wines live within three working days, if not sooner. We will always confirm the selling price with you by email before the wines are made for sale.

If there is any information to confirm, for example if a wine does not have a market value listed, it may take up to five working days to finalise the listing.

Like most fine wine merchants, we have a partnership with an international fine wine trading company called Liv-Ex which gives us access to live data on the market price of fine wines being sold around the world. We use these valuations to suggest a selling price at the market rate, and then let you adjust down, if perhaps you’d like to realise a faster sale, or upwards, if you aim to achieve a higher gain recognising it could take more time.

Yes. We take a standard 12% of the selling price, and remit the rest of the proceeds to you in the month following the month of the sale, which allows us to perform the necessary checks and also confirm where you wish to receive the monies.

Yes. In fact, we encourage the sale of wines by the single bottle, which we do with all Lay & Wheeler stock. To do so, request “allow a split case sale” when you select the wine for sale online or through our team.

Yes. Many customers buy wines en primeur and decide to sell them before the bottles have physically arrived in our warehouse. As they won’t yet have a stock certificate, you’ll need to call or email us so that we can assign them; en primeur wines cannot be added for sale using the online accounts page.

All wines being sold via broking are listed for sale on our website, alongside our own stock if we carry the same wine. We send a weekly email to a list of active trade customers, highlighting specific wines, which drives sales.

A condition report is a photograph taken of the wine at Vinoteque in their dedicated photography studio which shows the fill levels of the wine in each bottle. We require condition reports for wines which are over ten years old, which are being sold duty paid, and over a certain value.

Log into your account and navigate to the account page. Click on “View your reserves” on the left hand side, and then select “All wines currently held in stock.” You’ll then see a list of wines, and if you click on the “plus” sign next to each name, further details will unfold, including a “SELL NOW” button. Once you click on this button, you’ll be taken to a screen to set the price, select sale as a split case, request a condition report, agree to terms and conditions, and then set the sale live.

In some instances, you’ll see a notification which reads “Reason: Please contact us with regards to the market value on 01473 313 300 or email [email protected]" in lieu of the SELL NOW button. This may be because

The wine is still held en primeur - in which case there is not yet a stock certificate for the wine - so our team will have to set the sale up.

There is no market value.

The wine is too far past its listed drink dates.

In each of these instances, please do contact our team, and we’ll work to advise you on the best way forward.

We remit payment at the end of the month following the month of the sale. Once the wine is sold, we perform a number of checks to ensure secure transfer of the wine and the monies. We will also check with you to confirm where you would like the funds to be transferred.

The money will be transferred to your Lay & Wheeler account unless you instruct us otherwise. We can set up a bank transfer provided that you confirm the name on the account matches that on the Lay & Wheeler account, and share your sort code and account number. We require this information at least three working days before the last Friday of the month. We can also set up this transaction after the money has been paid into your account.